You Never Know
by Nancy T
Summary: Prue helps a young woman with a drinking problem, and reveals a secret of her own.
1. Perfect Strangers

_Author's Note: As everyone knows, in the final episode of season 3, Prue Halliwell was killed trying to save the life of a Dr. Griffiths. In the first episode of season 4, Paige Matthews was drawn to Prue's funeral, presumably as a result of a "find a lost witch" spell that Piper had cast in a desperate attempt to bring Prue back to life. However, Paige wasn't completely uninformed about the family; given up for adoption at birth, she had come to believe that her birth mother was the Halliwell girls' mother, and as a result she had begun hanging out at Piper's nightclub, P3, just to feel some kind of connection. In a conversation with her boyfriend at P3 the night of Prue's funeral, Paige told him what she thought her connection to the Halliwells was and why she particularly liked the club – although, she told him, as a recovering alcoholic, she didn't drink._

_When Phoebe met Paige at Prue's funeral, Phoebe asked her how she'd known Prue, and Paige gave a very vague answer. Later, Phoebe asked her directly whether she'd ever met Prue, and this time Paige said no. "Find a lost witch" spell or no, it seems odd that Paige would risk her boss' wrath to run out of work in the middle of the day to attend the funeral of a total stranger, and her conflicting answers to Phoebe do make it seem as though she might have met Prue, although for some reason she wouldn't say so._

_Here's the full story._

What caught Prue's attention at first was that the young woman leaving P3 turned her ankle, wavered, leaned on the hood of a car for support. What kept Prue's attention was that a moment later she was walking as though she hadn't even noticed that she'd stumbled, at a diagonal across the parking lot that made her bump gently into another car.

The young woman stopped, swayed her head loosely, spotted her car and crossed to it, fumbling in her shoulder bag. She pulled her keys out, but as she did they seemed almost to leap out of her hand, hitting the pavement a few feet in front of her.

"Crap," she said irritably, but before she could retrieve them Prue had picked them up.

"Oh, no, no," Prue said. "I don't think so."

The young woman extended her hand and said, "Hi. Thanks," clearly not understanding what Prue had just said.

"Thanks for calling a cab? Sure, anytime," Prue said, pocketing the keys.

"Hey! Give those back!"

"So you can go smash someone with your car? I don't think so. Come back inside, I'll get you some – "

"Oh, please." The girl was making a sudden effort to sound sober, and doing a pretty good job. "I live eight blocks from here. It's like midnight. Worst thing that happens, I bang into someone's storefront and kill myself."

"First of all, that's not the worst thing that can happen, all right? Second, you may not care if you get killed, but I do."

"Oh, right. You care a lot." The girl rattled the door handle of her green VW bug and then bounced her fist off of its roof. "Give me my keys, damn it!"

"OK, if you don't believe that I care about you, believe this. My sister owns this club. You kill someone driving away drunk from here, she gets sued, she could lose everything. Do you believe that I care about that?"

Why that got to her, Prue would never know. The girl stared at Prue for a moment, then her expression crumpled and she was suddenly near tears. "I didn't think – I don't want to hurt Piper."

"You know her?"

"I just, no, I mean, I come here a lot. I've seen all three of you guys here. You're Prue, right?"

Prue nodded.

"I'm sorry." Tears were rolling down the girl's face. "I just, it was a bad day."

"So you thought you'd make it better with a car crash?"

"No. But hey, poetic justice. My mom and dad died six years ago today. In a car crash." The girl waved her hand. "Guess who lived."

"Oh my God," Prue whispered. She'd been about to lecture the girl for overreacting because her date stood her up or something.

The girl turned her face away from Prue and wiped away tears, but they just kept coming. "Sorry."

"All right. Let's go somewhere else and talk."

"You don't need to – "

"Listen, you might as well. You're not going anywhere."

"Yeah, but you. Don't you have a date?"

"No. Piper's – doing some research, so I'm going to close up the club. I just came early to listen to the music. We've got time for a cup of coffee."

The girl smiled through her tears. "You know what you get when you pour coffee into a drunk? A wide-awake drunk, that's all. Someone in my AA group said that."

"You're – " Prue quelled the surprise in her voice. "You're in AA, all right, that's good."

"Yeah, won't they be proud of me? Where're we going?"

"Just around the corner here. It's open 24 hours."

A coffee shop around midnight can be dicey in terms of mood, but they were in luck; a group of college kids had apparently just finished some kind of project and were excitedly analyzing over pie and coffee, filling the place with laughter and energy.

At least, Prue thought the cheeriness would help, but the girl's face as she watched them was melancholy. Prue ordered coffee, the other girl coffee and cherry cobbler.

"So you know my name," Prue said. "How about returning the favor?"

"Paige Matthews."

Prue nodded and just looked at her.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be tying you up like this."

"I've got nothing better to do until closing time."

Paige looked over at the laughing students. "Damn. Sure blew my one-year-sober brag. Just a few weeks shy of it."

"Do you have – someone at AA, a friend or someone, you can – "

"My sponsor?" Paige smiled a little blearily. "Yeah, I do. And she's great, she really is. It's just, I've called her so much lately. I've been stressed. And tonight I just thought, you know, she has listened to me whine so much, I'm damned if I'm going to screw up another evening for her. I'll just go to P3. I, it, I'm so comfortable there." She looked up at Prue with an odd intensity. "It feels like family when I'm there. I kidded myself that I'd just order soda pop."

"Don't you – Is there someone else you can talk to?"

"I have an aunt and uncle, and they're nice, but they're older, and they live a couple of hours from here."

"Brothers? Sisters?"

"No." Paige drew a breath. "I think, sometimes I think – "

The waitress arrived with their order. When she'd left Prue said, "Sometimes you think–"

Paige laughed brokenly. "Oh, you know. Who'd want a drunk for a sister anyway? This cobbler looks great, want a bite?"

"No, thanks. You know, sometimes it's hard to admit to your friends that you're having a problem, but you'd be surprised – "

Paige was shaking her head. "My college friends were, you know, drinking buddies," she said. "And I just started a new job. Probably not the best career move to call someone there and say, 'In God's name, talk to me so I won't get drunk!'"

Prue found herself in a very unusual state: speechless. In her entire life, she'd never been as alone as this girl.

But she had felt as alone. A little over two years ago, she remembered as though it were last night, curled in the corner of her bedroom, she could still feel the sting of her nails sinking into her own arms, the pain of a jaw clenched so tight she was afraid her teeth would break, praying for sleep, for unconsciousness, please God –

"Sorry for bringing you down," Paige said. "I'm usually a funny drunk."

"Listen," Prue said forcefully. "You're going to promise me something, all right? You're going to promise me that the next time you feel like you don't have anyone to call, you'll call me." She opened her purse to get at her business card holder. "My cell phone number's on this card. I always have the phone with me. If there's no one else, you call me. Anytime."

Paige picked up the card and looked at it longingly, even as she said, "I'm not going to bother a stranger – "

"We've met, remember? Hi, I'm Prue Halliwell. OK, we're not perfect strangers."

" – weeping all over people. I ought to be able to do this by myself, just gut it out."

"It's the hard way. It's damn near impossible. You need support."

Paige looked at her speculatively, and even in the slightly sodden gaze Prue could tell that there was real intelligence there.

"All right. I'm going to tell you something I've never told anyone else, not even my sisters. Only one other person knows this, and I don't associate with him anymore."

Paige's expression went from speculative to skeptical. "You're not gonna tell me you had a problem with drinking."

"Speed."


	2. Why We Fight

_Oops! I forgot to do a disclaimer in the first chapter. However, you all know that the television show "Charmed" and all of its characters are copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc., don't you?_

Paige said a four-letter word, then glanced over guiltily at the elderly couple one table away.

"It was, bar none, the stupidest thing I've ever done. I had all kinds of excuses at the time. My grandmother had just died, we were sorting out her estate. Piper and I gave up our apartment and moved back into the family home, and I thought at least there'd be no rent to pay, but I hadn't figured on the costs of insurance and maintenance – it's an old house. Piper was doing her best to help, but she was just starting out in her career, not making much money. My baby sister had just dropped out of college and was basically doing nothing with her life, I was worried about her.

"I had just got a job that paid really well, but it was the only time in my life that I ever worried about whether I could do the job well enough. I knew I could be great at it given some time, but the household was running on my income, and I was scared to death that I wouldn't get good enough fast enough. I couldn't burden Piper with this – she's such a sweet insecure little thing, if I was worried about anything, she'd have figured it was all her fault." Prue paused, shook her head. "Like I say, excuses. As far as I could see, the only bright spot was that my boss was a cute guy who seemed sympathetic."

Paige gave a low, knowing laugh.

"He seemed really self-confident, and with the state I was in at the time, it just seemed great that he was interested in me, and wanted to support my career. How is it possible that I never realized what a jerk he was?"

"When you get to feeling like that," Paige said, "you see what you want to see. If you're on something, that makes it easier."

"Well, I wasn't at the time. But one day I dragged in, I'd been up all night researching antiquities, and Roger came in with a busload of energy. And told me how he managed it. I knew it was stupid, I want you to know, I'm not dumb, I knew it was a stupid thing to try. But I figured that otherwise my other bosses would see how wiped out I was and they'd think I wasn't up to the job. I thought, OK, I'll use it to get me over this rough patch and then quit before I get addicted."

"How long – "

"About four months. During which time I got a raise, got engaged to Roger, accused my sister Phoebe of making a pass at him and had such a huge screaming fight that she moved clear across the country, almost got fired because of my behavior toward a major donor, and ran my car into a lamppost. The weird thing is, it was a little unspectacular moment that woke me up. I had just finished taking a pill, I mean literally just finished swallowing, and I realized that I was already looking forward to the next one. And I thought, all right, this is just going to get worse. I took a week off work and told Piper I was exhausted and taking some time to work through my emotional issues, and shut myself in my room."

"My God, woman. You could've died."

"I hadn't been that heavy of a user until just before then. I think that's what saved me. But yes. It was awful – physically, mentally, emotionally. It was the worst time of my life, except for the time my mom died and the time my dad took off. It was even worse than the time my grandmother died, because I knew the speed thing was my own damn fault, whereas I couldn't have done anything about Grams – she kept her heart problem to herself."

"Runs in the family, huh?"

Prue smiled wryly. "Yeah. And that's my point. If I were able to go back now and tell myself something, it would be to get some help. Even if I couldn't bear to tell Piper and Phoebe, tell someone. Get support. Get advice from people who've been there. Call a doctor. Tell everyone you're going on vacation and check into rehab. Don't try doing it alone. It's too miserable, and it's too dangerous. Talk to someone."

"OK." Paige finished off her coffee with a quick swig. "You want talk, I'll give you talk. But I have to tell you, everyone I've said this to is stumped. They just basically say, well, uh, you should care about yourself. Which doesn't help much when you're having cravings. Wanna hear it?"

Prue smiled the small smile of the truly self-confident fighter. "Hit me."

"_Why_ should I get sober? It's obvious why you had to – your sisters needed you, you had a responsible job where people were depending on you. But me," she shrugged, "if I died tomorrow, they'd just plug another secretary into my place. My aunt and uncle would feel bad, of course, but I'm not a huge part of their lives. My friends are all miles away or bad for me. I don't have a boyfriend, much less a husband or kids. No brothers or sisters. No parents. I know it sounds whiny, but when I'm really needing a drink it just sounds like plain fact to me: It doesn't matter if I sober up. If I dropped into the ocean tomorrow, there wouldn't even be a ripple."

Prue shook her head. "You have a very tough row to hoe."

Paige looked down at her empty plate. "Not the worst in the world."

"No. But it is tough. Well, to begin with, you _should_ care about yourself."

Paige gave a one-syllable laugh. "Yeah."

"Second, your parents do care about you. Just because you can't see or hear them doesn't mean they don't care desperately. They're worried about your problem and rooting for you to make it through."

"Yeah. I kind of believe in an afterlife sometimes too, but sometimes – "

"Believe it. Trust me. They know about you and they care deeply. But that's not even the main reason why you should stay sober."

"OK, what's the main reason?"

"We need you."

"Who?"

"All of us. Look at it this way. If America were attacked by a powerful country tomorrow, and every citizen had to be mobilized to take some kind of part in the defense effort, you'd understand why you're needed. Because that organized, open call to arms isn't there, you think you're not.

"But there is an attack going on – and you know it, probably better than most. It has nothing to do with nations. The entire human race is constantly under attack by evil – and evil does exist, you're going to have to trust me on that one too. Fear's attacking us as well, that may do more damage than evil. The fact that human beings are the weapons, as well as the victims, doesn't give any of us an excuse for not doing our part. There are so many people who've been victims in the attack already – criminals, suicides, drug addicts. People so lost or so – maimed, that it takes all their effort just to get from day to day. And that, Paige, leaves the rest of us to carry on the fight.

"We may not feel special, and we may feel pretty lost ourselves. But the world, the human race, needs every ounce of our courage, every ounce of our love and goodwill, every ounce of knowledge, anything we have to give. We cannot afford the luxury of saying we'll just let go. We are under attack. Anyone we might ever care about is under attack. People worth saving are under attack. We have to fight."

For a long moment Paige stared into Prue's eyes. Then her gaze dropped, as if she were thinking it over.

Then she said slowly, "You might be right."

Prue just let her think, and after a moment Paige laughed. "Even if I can't really see myself as the rescuer of the innocent."

Prue smiled. Then she said, "Every single Rosie the Riveter was needed. Heck, every single rivet was needed."

"Yeah." Paige looked back up, meeting Prue's eyes. "Yeah, you're right. That'll help. We all have to do our bit in the fight. I can't go AWOL and assume that someone else will pick up my slack."

"Exactly."

"Man, I've gotta tell you, though, I am going to miss P3. It's almost like my second home now. Maybe I can come back someday, when I can trust myself more, and we can, you know, have a virgin margarita together?"

"Better yet. You stay away from P3 or any nightclub, bar sort of place, and stay sober, for one year, and not only will I buy you a virgin margarita at P3, I'll have you over for dinner. Piper used to be a chef, you know. She's a really good cook."

Paige's smile gleamed, and she looked as if she were going to float out of the booth with elation. "You're on. I hope you mean it, 'cause I'm going to hold you to it."

"Keep my phone number. Call me when you need to. Just because we don't get together at P3 doesn't mean there aren't lots of other places. Or we can just talk on the phone."

Paige smiled, put Prue's card into an inner, zippered pocket of her purse, and said, "I will."

One of two things would happen, Prue figured. Either Paige would call her twice a day every day, or she'd never hear from her again.

But she was surprised. Two weeks passed without a call, and then, when Prue was on a date one night, her cell phone rang. Paige was in distress. At the social services agency where she worked, she had been helping on a case involving a pair of abusive parents, and it was making her crazy. She wanted to hit both of them and, since she couldn't do that, she desperately wanted to drink herself into numbness. Prue briefly explained what was happening to her date, slipped off to the women's room, and talked Paige down until the exhaustion from her emotional state kicked in and she told Prue she wanted to sleep. Feeling a little better, Prue went back to her date, who was royally ticked off. However, all things considered, it was good to know which guys respond well to unexpected emergencies and which don't.

She called Paige back then next morning from a deli where she was grabbing a bagel, and was delighted to hear the girl's voice – clear, enthusiastic, and busy at work.

A few months later her cell phone rang as she was setting up a photo shoot. "Prue Halliwell."

"Prue? I don't know if you remember me. This is Paige Matthews."

"Of course I remember you!" she said, actually physically kicking herself. She'd been so busy that she hadn't called Paige, although she'd thought about it. "How are you doing?"

"Hangin' in there. Just thought I'd call. It's six months, you know."

"Six – " And then she remembered. "Oh, my God, you're right. That's so great, Paige! Congratulations! Want to meet me at the coffee shop to celebrate?"

"Actually I'm having dinner with a couple of friends tonight. Believe it or not."

"I do believe it. That's so great, Paige."

"I just – Do you remember our deal?"

"Absolutely. You stay sober for a year, I buy you a soda at P3 and have you over for a Piper Halliwell feast."

Paige laughed a little breathlessly. "Tell her she can plan the menu. I'm going to be there."

Prue was ashamed of the squirm in the pit of her stomach, but it was there, and she had to do something about it. "I'll be looking forward to it. Will you do me a favor?"

_TO BE CONTINUED_


	3. The Promise

_The television show "Charmed" and all of its characters are copyrighted by Spelling Television, Inc., a subsidiary of Spelling Entertainment Group, Inc._

_DON'T forget to read the Author's Note at the beginning of the first chapter, if you skipped over it before!_

"Sure."

"If – Will you promise me that you'll never tell Piper and Phoebe about, you know, what I told you?"

"You've still never told them?"

"No. If I can avoid it, I never will. I don't know how to explain it, Paige. But with our mom dying when we were so young, even with our grandmother there, I sort of – helped raise them. I've been their protector for as long as I can remember. I know it's silly, but I just don't ever want them to know I was that weak. Ever."

"I don't think they'd think that you were weak. I think they'd know you were enormously strong, to pull yourself out of that and stay out. But of course it's not my place to tell them. I promise I won't."

"Ever. Not even if you and Phoebe get to be best friends, which I have a feeling you could."

"Not ever, even if it turns out that we're actually – long-lost cousins, or something."

"Thanks, Paige. That makes me feel better."

"Well, for all the times you've helped me – "

"I haven't done that much. I'm really sorry about that."

"Yes. You have. You don't know how many nights I've told myself the thing about everyone in the world being needed in the fight against evil and fear. You don't know how many times I looked at your card and thought, if it gets bad enough, I can call her. You just, you'll never know how many times."

Tears welled in Prue's eyes. And here came the models for the shoot. "I have to get to work," she said softly. "You use that card anytime you want. And I'll try to stay in better touch."

In fact, she called a month later, but Paige was heading out the door for a lesson in reading tarot cards, in which she'd recently developed an interest. Two months after that, Paige called her to remind her of the nine-month anniversary, and they both laughed at how crazy their schedules were. Just before they hung up Paige said, "And hey, in case you're worrying about it, I've remembered my promise about what you told me. They'll never know it from me. But I think you should tell them someday."

"Maybe someday. Call me if you need to."

"You too."

As Prue closed the phone, she chuckled a little. Paige's tone was the supportive one in this conversation. You'd never have known that could be the case, nine months ago.

A few days before the one-year anniversary Prue came into the kitchen after her morning walk and found Piper there making coffee.

"I'd like to have a friend over for dinner in a few days, and I kind of promised her a Piper Halliwell feast. Is that OK?"

"Sure. Anyone I know?"

"Damn it!" Phoebe stormed into the kitchen and slammed the newspaper down on the table. "There are times when I hate this!"

"You're up?" Prue gasped. "And _you_ got the paper?"

"Good morning sunshine to you too," Phoebe said. "All I did was pick the thing up and got a double premonition. I have a life, you know!" she yelled in the direction of the ceiling.

"A double premonition? What was it?" Prue asked.

"A guy in a doctor's coat being attacked by a warlock. The warlock is sitting in an office like he's a patient, the doctor comes in, poof, athame in the chest. That was very clear – I could see the warlock's face, the clock on the wall, everything. Then, just as I thought I was pulling out of it, I had, like, a fragment of another premonition: the same doctor flying through the air, like something blew him or threw him. But there's no knife wound in his chest."

Piper had unrolled the paper and spread it out on the table. "Is this the doctor?"

She was pointing at one of the feel-good interviews that newspapers put on the front page sometimes to leaven the death and scandal. In the middle of the page was a picture of a man in a white coat standing beside a table full of lab equipment. He was looking slightly off camera, gesturing, as though explaining something to someone near the photographer. He looked smallish, balding, cocky, animated. The headline beneath the photo was:

Doctor finds research,

practice a good blend

"That's him," Phoebe said.

"He looks pleased with himself," Prue said.

"Apparently he has a right to." Piper had been scanning the story. "He practices medicine _and_ does medical research. Darn few people do that."

"Anyway, he's attracted the wrong kind of attention for some reason," Prue said. "Could you see anything at all about the attacker in your second premonition?"

Phoebe shook her head. "Not even where it happened. Maybe they were in the wrong order? The warlock throws the doctor around before he kills him?"

"No, I don't think so," Prue said. "I think that if something stops the warlock from killing the doctor – "

" – like us – " Piper said –

" – something else more powerful, like a demon, is going to come after him. And if someone is ordering around both warlocks and demons on one mission – "

"The Source is behind it," Phoebe said.

Prue nodded. "You said there was a clock on the wall in the warlock premonition. Could you see the time?"

Phoebe closed her eyes, remembering. "Nine-thirty."

"Damn. It's 9:00 now." Prue looked up at the ceiling and yelled, "We have lives, you know!" Phoebe laughed.

"Maybe it was 9:30 at night?" Piper said hopefully.

"We can't take the chance," Prue said, taking the car keys off the rack on the kitchen wall as Phoebe moved into the hall. "If the Source is after this guy, we've got to get him back here where it's safe, ASAP. We've got pretty good writeups of the Source's favorite hit men in the Book of Shadows. If you can touch the doctor, Pheebs, you might get a better idea of which hit man gets the job after the warlock we're about to vanquish."

"It was weird," Phoebe said. "Like he was hit by a tornado."

"Tornado," Piper said thoughtfully, scooping her purse off the table in the front hall. "That sounds familiar. Oh, Prue, don't forget to call your friend and tell her to come on over."

Prue paused and reached into her purse as Phoebe opened the door and stepped out onto the porch.

Then Prue shook her head and kept walking. "I'll wait until we're sure our innocent's safe. If we're going to be hiding this guy from the Source's hit man, our house may not be the best place. Could be kind of disconcerting for her if a demon pops up during dinner."

"Of course, maybe she's got great aim with a steak knife," Piper said, blinking at the morning sun.

Prue laughed as she locked the door. "You never know," she said.

The three hurried down the front steps, hoping they'd be in time to save Dr. Griffiths.


End file.
